Movie Review: Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Quentin Tarantino movies are often an enigma, a collection of hyper-violent images and self-indulgent homages to movies that most of the viewing public have never even heard of, much less seen. They are also, in the opinion of this reviewer, some of the greatest movies of the past twenty years.

Inglourious Basterds is neither as good as Pulp Fiction nor as overbloated as the Kill Bill duology (which was still a damn good set of movies). The most surprising thing about it is, outside of three or four scenes, it is much less about gratuitous violence and more about how people act and feel, playing out more like a European art film than an American action movie.

The best performance of the movie is easily Christoph Waltz's, and without his tour de force, Inglourious Basterds would most likely be the weakest film in the Tarantino canon. Waltz moves easily among English, French, German, and even a little Italian, and does so in a way that it seems effortless (and indeed it may be), and he infuses all of his scenes with a sense of black humor that slides in easily with Tarantino's writing.

In fact, Waltz's performance is so nuanced and well done that it's difficult to judge the other acting performances, as they all pale in comparison. Melanie Laurent does a good job as Shosanna, and she shows why she's one of the up-and-comers in the French movie scene. Brad Pitt does a serviceable as Southern redneck Aldo Raine, but it's not going to win him any awards.

The main complaints that can be leveled against Inglourious Basterds is that it A) is a little too long, with some scenes dragging on for a good 15 or 20 minutes, making the total length of the movie stand at over two-and-a-half hours and B) has a very poor marketing scheme, with many of the trailers focusing on the Brad Pitt storyline, which is NOT the main story arc, and doesn't prepare viewers for the long periods of quiet talking and tension building that makes up the bulk of the movie's time on the screen. This doesn't really effect how good the movie is, but has probably led to some of the more negative reviews of the film, as most people were expecting Pulp Fiction in a War Zone, which this movie most definitely is not.

We haven't reached Oscar-bait season yet, but as it stands, Inglourious Basterds is the best movie of 2009 so far (narrowly edging out Up), and stands a good chance of being one of the ten best movies at year's end.

Rating: 9/10

Sorry for the delay

Well, it's been a while since I've submitted any new reviews, mainly due to personal laziness/not having the time after moving to Syracuse. I'm going to try and submit reviews of a few films I've seen recently in the next few days, with the new philosophy of just focusing on a movie's pros and cons, and not including any plot rehashing that most reviews have (and that I've tried to include sometimes), mainly because these details are readily available on a lot of websites/TV trailers, and thus you probably don't need my rendition (unless, of course, it's something I either like/dislike about said movie.

Again, sorry for the wait, hope you all enjoy the new reviews!